'Give Peat a Chance'- Climate Camp Shannonbridge 2009

Hundreds participated in Climate Camp at Shannonbridge, which was held under the shadow of the peat burning powerstation.
The Climate Camp organised three events to create better awareness around the industrial use of peat in powerstations.

Fianna Fáil's Garret Tubridy unknowingly contributed to the eco-conscious Climate Camp at Shannonbridge. Recent local election posters were reused as part of the men's toilet facilities. Users did not have to look at his face. Gavin Harte gave a talk on communicating the media message with plenty of workshops on drumming, Rossport, permaculture, the endless dreamcatchers and there were more banners being made than you could shake a stick at. It was great for kids and parents alike.

Lentil Disorder provided the veggie food for the hungry masses with an oats crisis on the Saturday morning. Chocolate flapjacks sated the appetites of early risers.

Locals were bemused watching the parade which left the camp shortly after midday. The barmen from both locals - Killeen's and Luker's pubs - waved at some of their new customers. Another local said nothing like this had ever happened in Shannonbridge before. Paraders from the camp had dressed up as zombies and the dark forces of dangerous carbon emissions with a symbolic chimney stack. Biffo of course led the zombies through the village! Campers had made banners, placards, dream catchers and an eclectic sound system boomed, 'Black Betty, Bam Alam' and Marley.

Kayakers got onto the little island in the middle of the Shannon holding aloft a banner 'Sponge Bog Stops Floods', as the parade reached the bridge timed nicely with cyclists returning from another direct action from the bog.

A few different direct actions were planned and no one told me nuthin'.

There are three peat powerstations in ireland, Lanesboro and Edenderry, where agile activists dropped banners from, and Shannonbridge where there was a parade and some scuffles broke out when the parade couldn't go up to the powerstation.

RSS and atom feeds allow you to keep track of new comments on particular stories. You can input the URL's from these links into a rss reader and you will be informed whenever somebody posts a new comment. hide help

Climate Camp provided a focus for those concerned with Ireland's contribution to climate change, putting the inefficient burning of an important environmental asset into the national consciousness.

Workshops and direct action alerted the country to the fact that the semi state company Bord na Mona is removing a valuable carbon sink and producing large amounts of emissions by converting it into electricity. There are more emissions per watt generated from peat burning than other fossil fuels such as oil, gas or coal.

Our boglands are the most extensive in Europe and should be protected for habitat and environmental value. Instead they are harvested to provide 6% of the nations electricity needs.

While such a policy may have been appropriate within the knowledge context of the 1950s, it is out of date and redundant now. Yes, the local economy of the midlands needs to be addressed and put on a sustainable footing. Yes, the security of energy supply insists that we use indigenous assets. But within the context of the Climate Change Crisis, the burning of the bogs is a redundant policy.

I look forward to a dialogue with the local community, the semi states of ESB and Bord na Mona about how we can co-create a transition to sustainable local development that puts the protection of the remaining bogs as a priority.

Extensive media coverage nationally and locally put Ireland's climate change contribution centre stage. The actions and ideas emanating from Climate Camp will impact on the national debate as we address one of the biggest crises ever to face humanity.

On another level altogether, Climate Camp united interested people from all parts of the island. We lived together for a short time, learned a lot from the excellent workshops and will continue the work in our own communities.

Kudos to the organisers, to the participants and to the locals who engaged with us and accepted our presence and point of view in Shannonbridge.

Save our Bogs
Irish Peat Conservation Council are looking for volunteers this week to help preserve Lodge Bog in Kildare.
This might be a good follow up action after the success of last week's Climate Camp
Active bogs can accumulate approx 0.7 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year

What on Gods earth are you people wasting your time protesting about peat burning power stations? Would it not be reasonable to assume with the pressure from the EU and the progress of wind/water energy that in the very near future these peat burning stations will close and be replaced with renewable energy, give the ESB a call they will even tell you. Waste of time!

Looks like it was a fantastic event. I hope the two that were arrested are ok and that everyone else enjoyed making a stand too. Well done, full support. It's great to see people coming together like this.

As part of Heritage Week, The Irish Peatland Conservation Council have organized a week of drain blocking on a recently purchased extension to Lodge Bog, Co. Kildare. The aim of this work is to raise the water table of this formerly drained area of the bog complex to allow for the return of the bog’s natural flora and fauna.

Active bogs can accumulate approximately 0.7 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year. This means that the newly purchased area could eventually store 2.45 tonnes of carbon per year, once the water table is raised and the peat forming vegetation returns.

The daily timetable will be

10:00 am: Meeting at the Bog of Allen Nature Centre.

10:30 am: Bringing equipment to the bog and blocking drains

1:00 pm : Lunch

2:00 pm : Back to blocking

4:00 pm : Finish up and return to the centre.

What you’ll need

* A packed lunch
* Wellies
* A waterproof jacket and trousers

If anyone is interested in helping out just contact me on 087 - 314 2892.

Is mise, le meas,

Cillian Breathnach MSc

Conservation and Reserves Officer

Irish Peatland Conservation Council

Directions to the Bog of Allen Nature Centre:

From Dublin take the Maynooth exit off the N4, turning at the roundabout onto the road marked Straffan/Clane/Naas. At the roundabout of Barberstown Castle, take the exit for Clane. Drive into Clane. Drive through the traffic lights in the centre of the town. Take the right hand turn in Clane at the Corner Pub (yellow building) onto the R403 to Prosperous and Allenwood. Drive through Allenwood. Less than half a mile outside Allenwood, take the left turn over the skew canal bridge onto the R414. If you miss this turn you will end up in Carbury. Drive for three miles. This brings you to the Bog of Allen Nature Centre on the right hand side of the road. It’s a long green building.

So much passionate people, so much serious regard for issues, goals, strategy. And, despite the odd half day of being lashed out of it, so much Joy and fun

Lovely to see old faces, some not since tea drinking by the lake at ecotopia.
Lovely to see new faces.
Lovely to walk and bike up to the bog and participate with others in a simple yet powerful action and have kevins pic-nic after.
Lovley to go through so much stuff on Saturday full day of "direct action", thats what life is about isnt it: understanding your place and responsibility in this strange adventure, doing what you can to make things better for planet and her peoples, laughing and singing and "random dancing" your way around, as well as expressing those truths you feel that move you to do what you do, and listening to those from others in this battle...

Lovely to swim in the Shannon today, a full closure for this massive step down at Shannonbridge.
Peace.

A very very important few days has just come to an end. In many years to come, people will look back to those days when a new space opened for the critical dialogue about what were the causes of climate chaos and what could be done about it locally. Massive Thanks to all the climate camp crew who worked to pull this first step off, all in all, I dont think it could have gone better.

Lovely memories, loads of new people with new ideas, a great time living together in a boggy field, and as for the parade, what I heard from some of the locals was that it was the best thing to hit Shannonbridge in a long long time.

I hope ye all enjoy the film screenings and more up with John and co in Lukers...

Why set up a climate camp aimed at what is, face it, rather an insignificant target, and one that seems designed both to divide and marginalise? Where are the climate camps protesting the M3 Motorway's impact on the environment, or that of the M50, or that of Dublin Airport? Where indeed? It's as if the strategy is to ensure that the political aspects of environmental degradation remains unaddressed.

''Why set up a climate camp aimed at what is, face it, rather an insignificant target''

This question barley demands a response but it might be out of misinformation that the question was asked in the first place. Peat is the dirtiest fuel of all and a worthy target.

I hope you were involved with setting up the camp, because your critic wouldnt hold much ground. If youre not doing anything yourself while global warming intensifies and these people gave a lot of time and put a lot of effort in organising an amazing week then you should be happy it happended and not so critical.

My point is that these plants will very likely be phased out anyway. In answer to your query, I have spent years campaigning against the motorways programme, which is the single most profligate waste of money in the history of the State. I hope to see climate camps drawing attention to the massive increase of car usage caused by a deliberate policy of pouring billions into motorways that will not be used while starving public transport of funds.

I do not intend to castigate anyone's efforts to draw attention to matters relating to environmental damage, and this is welcome as a beginning. But peat stations would not have been my first choice. The taxpayer-funded expansion of Dublin Airport for the benefit of low-cost private airlines and the taxpayer-funded corporate bonanza of motorway building would have been.

I hope to see further actions which draw attention to the utter lack of commitment by Government (and opposition) to ending these schemes in favour of something which both benefits the public and does not deliberately set fire to public money.

It would be great if you came to the next all-islang gathering in Dublin (propbably seomra spraoi) on SEpt. 29th and helped gear towards the next climate camp in 2010. Motorways were put down as a possible target in the first meetings in January as well as many other targets.... Different logistical and practical reasons were used to help us decide this year's target, but ALL IDEAS are welcome for next year....WE NEED MORE TO GET INVOLVED IN ORGANISING so we can make it bigger and better from year to year!

I support the decision that was made to have Ireland's first Climate Camp target the world's largest peat burning plant at Shannonbridge.

I wasn't party to the decision - I thought it odd at first - but having spent some days camped in a sodden field adjacent to the massive power plant, attending workshops and conversing with locals and activists alke, I understand and support the decision.

Over the course of my participation in CC I learned that the total emissions' contribution of burning peat for electricity generation in ireland is equivalent to the emissions generated by vehicular transport.

Prior to Climate Camp, concerns about Ireland's peatlands, articulated mostly by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council (http://www.ipcc.ie/bogsimportant.html) and Friends Of The Irish Environment (http://friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/peat/peat/peat_....html), often drew attention to the impact on biodiversity. In an energy context, peat burning contributed to the security of supply. In a socio-economic context, the debate was about the contribution of harvesting and burning peat to creating jobs in the midlands, a region in need of support and investment, thereby continuing the semi-state industrialisation policies of the 1950s.

Post Climate Camp, the debate about burning the bogs for energy shifts to a Climate Change context. Destuction of the bogs removes a carbon sink, damages a non renewable ecological treasure and emits large amounts of Carbon Dioxide.

While peat-for-power stations contribute only 6% of Ireland's electricity, they emit more greenhouse gasses per watt generated than other fossil fuel sources such as (imported) oil, (imported) coal and gas.

In a Climate Change context, the current policy of bog burning is redundant and needs to be addressed immediately at Cabinet level and in the boardrooms of Bord na Mona and ESB.

I support all moves to end the exploitation of the remaining bogs as soon as possible. I support a dialogue with local stakeholders to see how the peat dependent midlands region can make the transition to become a more sustainable local economy. I congratulate the Climate Campers for getting the issue onto the national agenda.

Where will the next Camp(s) be located? Well, as far as I can gather from the consensus decision making processes of the organisers, that's yet to be decided. And I encourage anyone with an opinion to monitor developments via the Climate Camp website, to get involved, and to make whatever case you need to make.

This year's location was selected for several reasons. It has historic resonance as the place where Wat Tyler led the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. In addition, it is designated common land rather than parkland, making it harder to be evicted from. Lastly, the heath, fringed by large Victorian houses, has an open view to the skyscrapers and bank headquarters of Canary Wharf to the north.

Activists said they planned to use the camp as a base from which to launch direct action against perceived environmental offenders in the City.

Action could include blockades and lock-ins, said Kevin Smith, an organiser for the camp, which is run on non-hierarchical lines, with decisions taken collectively. He said: "I can't really go into details, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few people superglued themselves to a few things over the next few days."

Climate Camp in Shannonbridge
We have been contacted by Ian Clotworty about an upcoming 'Climate Camp' event in the area -

You are probably already aware of the Climate Camp taking place in the coming weeks near Shannonbridge. I, one of the organisers, am writing to let you know about an information evening for the residents of the area taking place in the old school across the road from the church. The day is this friday, 7th August and the time is 8pm. We would like to get plenty of people at it so they know what is going to happen before it does, who we are, what the camp would be like, and also to take the opportunity to make a personal invitation to visit, learn, teach, participate or help out at the camp. We have put up posters that you might notice. http://shannonbridge.blogspot.com/2009/08/climate-camp-....html

Earlier mentions:

Sunday, August 23, 2009
All the week the Climate Change group have been encamped in a field near the power plant. Yesterday they held another march through Shannonbridge shouting slogans.The one I heard them chanting was "We Have A Protest". They appeared to cause no trouble but there were a big turn out of Gardai and police cars. At one stage some of the protesters climbed on top of some parked wagons of Milled Peat. A Garda asked one of the Shannonbridge people what he thought should be done. He said that the power plant should be knocked and a nuclear power plant be built in its place. One of the protesters said that there was a shortage of uranium and he would not agree with a nuclear plant.The Shannonbridge man said there was plenty of uranium, it was all hidden beneath the bogs. When the bogs were all used up the uranium would be found. The good breeze was blowing from the east on Saturday.

20th August 2009
The Climate Change week focused all this week on Shannonbridge by the eco friendly group is picking up the attention of TV, Radio and Press that they desire. This week the Midland Tribune gives them front page coverage and they got mention on Pat Kenny's Show on radio and got a slot on Wednesday TV news. The Swedish couple that arrived yesterday have pitched their tent with Climate Change.

Bord na Mona is a private turf club, stripping the bogs of Ireland and tossing them into a furnace off a conveyor belt of trains.
They excavate , they dig and they burn the earth and all for absolutely nothing.
Ordinary folk are losing their turf cutting rights, while at the same time Bord na Mona are machine- cutting many many times
the amount a hand-cutter cuts.

There is no profit in this organised vandalism, and nothing left for the ordinary punter.
It is time to stop this rampage of machines through the heart of Ireland, time to stop burning the bogs for nothing.

We pulled it off people...all who envisioned, inspired, planned, met, worked, participated, built, laughed, cooked, sang, discussed and took DIRECT ACTION, WELL DONE...it was ALL worth it. 300 people, 9 days of workshops, 7 enormous banners, 6 perfect compost loos, over 30 radio interviews, 27 delicious sustainable meals, simultaneous actions at ALL THREE peat-fired powerstations, 100s of bags of milled peat returned to the bog... all impossible without you! People's response during the go-round at the final plenary were great. The camp got a phenomenal amount of media coverage for it's size, all of it was balanced and much of it was sympathetic.

Continuous evaluation of what we are doing is the only way we can keep going though - so please offer YOUR thoughts on how the camp was for you, what aspects we should stop, start or continue. We will have discussions at the next all-Ireland gathering where you can express these thoughts but it would be great to feedback as soon as possible here on the forum.

Dissident Island Radio (the team that helped produce Climate Camp Radio 2008) is broadcasting live from camp! Broadcasting on 101.8 FM and streaming live, every night at 6:30pm...

The player above will play the second show...We're in the process of uploading the third and fourth shows, and they'll feature here soon!

Click here to download last night's broadcast - the second show - which went out live on Friday 28 August - featuring:

* Mike from the Documentation Team on catching a candid climate camp for posterity;
* Lily from Plane Stupid reminiscing on the Stansted Airport action and reflections on direct action;
* Ben on reducing your carbon footprint;
* live acoustic tunes from musicians, Bruise;
* the WAG (Whitechapel Anarchist Group) and Martin, from Activist Trauma Support, clear the air on the 'incident' that happened day 1 of camp, when the police were on site and, well, were ushered off! We have a discussion on radical messages and 'liberal posturing';
* and finally, the Media team discuss the latest mainstream media coverage...

the first show aired live on Thursday 27 August:

This show features interviews with the Legal and Media team of this year's camp, as well as some chat on the take of the camp site (the swoop!) from the cyclists' swoop group and two lovely folk from the Site Team, discussing all the hard work that is coming together to bring us a great camp infrastructure.

This email was read out on the Pat Kenny radio show while climate camp was on. My mum heard it and was impressed. There may not be anything new in it - but I find it very encouraging that someone took the time to compose it, and that dear old Pat took the time to read it.

There are a huge amount of links within blog / newspaper posts on their site linking back into indymedia london and related activist blogs, 1 interesting example is from "Engaging the enemy" leading to "Climate Camp did, meeting five times with the Met's commanders in the lead-up to the camp which ended this week and even agreeing to venture into the force's riot training centre." and also it leads into a blog post from Whitechapel Anarchist Group entitled "Revolting Peasants"

remember they opened a space in which the ian tomlinson (man killed due to unprovoked strike from cop which led him to hitting head of ground as hands were in pocket) videos appeared which did so much to show up the cops for what they have been doing for so long

ill finish with a vid to something very important; 18 min vid doc about kingnorth direct action by greenpeace which resulted with them being freed on "lawful excuse" for their action, which really, should open the flood gates to more and more actions to shutting down big CO2 emission plants...(same legal argument used successfully by pitstop ploughshares in demilitarising a war plane in shannon in attempt to stop the war in iraq)

A Time Comes: The story of the Kingsnorth Six

Acclaimed film-maker Nick Broomfield's documentary about the 'Kingsnorth Six', the environmental activists who scaled a tower at a coal-fired power station in protest against pollution in 2007. The resulting court case drew support for them from leading scientists, and their subsequent acquittal proved historic and changed government policy. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/may/31...north

Strange strange times indeed. Finally the world is waking up to the fact that we are in serious environmental trouble, for some there is sheer despair that its already too late, but for many more they see these days as perhaps the most important we, as a collective species, have had to or might ever have to deal with.

Years ago, for the most part, there was huge ignorance of the mess we were getting into.
In 10 or 20 years it will probably be too late, because unless we change our ways now, we will have inadvertantly set of the eco time bomb we have been building in the last few years.
BUT here and now, we have the opportunity to change things, to really change things. For many it is an opportunity to stand up and participate in this process for change. Governments wont act unless we force them, that only happens when there is a critical mass movement to force that change, a few years ago, that looked so unlikely to happen. But now, that all seems to be changing, thankfully.

Acts of absolute creativity, bottom up organisation, celebrational actions, mass invitation to join the party (not political party but feasta, or fiesta), its catching, people are beggining to be buzzed up, they seem to be WAKING UP. Cynics might say "its not enough", but its a start. Also positivity and imagination are powerfull tools for change. And with that, why not let us imagine the best case scenario; we all wake up, true global understanding, solidarity and action links are forged, massive change happens, the worlds problems get sorted, and we end up happier in the post oil age than we were in the last few years of its sad existence (bank bail outs, nama cuts, depression, suicide, obesity, boredom, columbine...)

Anyway, this week, 2 major things happened: The Global Wake-Up Call + AGE OF STUPID

The Global Wake-Up Call 210909

On 21 September 2009, at more than 2600 events in 135 countries across the globe, we joined together to issue a deafening wake-up call to world leaders on climate change. The breadth and creativity of events is breathtaking, and our message broke through to leaders and international media.

The Age of Stupid is a 2009 film by Franny Armstrong, director of McLibel & founder of 10:10, and John Battsek, producer of One Day in September. The film is a drama-documentary-animation hybrid which stars Pete Postlethwaite as the last person alive in the devastated world of 2055, watching archive footage from 2008 and asking: why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?

The film was released internationally on 21 September and 22 September at the "Global Premiere". A green carpet, solar-powered cinema tent in New York was linked by satellite to 442 cinemas across the USA and to more than 200 cinemas in more than 45 other countries. Special guests included Kofi Annan, Pete Postlethwaite and Gillian Anderson. Popular musicians Moby and Thom Yorke performed live.

Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai: If US Moves Forward on Climate Change, Rest of World Will Follow

A new overview of research on global warming has found climate change is happening faster and on a broader scale than scientists projected in 2007. The new findings come in a week where the issue of global warming is at the fore with a one-day UN summit on climate change and the G-20 in Pittsburgh. We speak with the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, who was chosen to speak on behalf of international civil society at the UN summit. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/25/nobel_peace_laure...ai_if

Guest:

Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmentalist and founder of the Green Belt Movement. She is the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Her latest book is The Challenge for Africa.